


Maybe Later

by Lilsi



Category: The Bill (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24181693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsi/pseuds/Lilsi
Summary: Snatches of thoughts from Luke and Craig. Post Sunhill
Relationships: Luke Ashton/Craig Gilmore
Kudos: 2





	Maybe Later

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction was once posted at Craiggilmore.co.uk a fan site no longer active, so to preserve this story and others, I am importing them to AO3. I did not want the loss of such a large amount of amazing and wonderful fanfiction, it would be such a waste to fans of Craig Gilmore and Luke Ashton to not have the opportunity to enjoy these stories as i have. Since the site is no longer active i have been unable to contact the creators but if you happen to be them under a new pen name and want the fiction to be removed please send me a note!
> 
> Story written by - Baxter

1.

Luke snips carefully.

Normally he’d hardly look twice at the newspaper, just the headlines, football reports if he’d missed the telecast (or his dimwit flatmate screwed up the recording again), maybe the court reports if there’d been something juicy.

But today on page 5 there was something worth keeping. The report told the story of two senior police officers who managed to trace and save an abducted child within twenty minutes of being alerted of the crime.

Luke has memorised every word. His scissors take small snicks along the heading of the text.

“Inspector Craig Gilmore, 36,” Luke says as he delicately cuts around the edge of the photo which shows a Sergeant Lou Poroski and the Inspector posed with the child and her mother. Although all four are smiling, Craig is closed lipped.

“Don’t like the camera, do you, Sarge?” Luke smooths the clipping gently. Craig looks exactly as Luke remembers except his hair is a little shorter.

Above the desk in Luke’s tidy room is a large pin-board covered with photos, ticket stubs, funny pictures his friends have emailed him and various Arsenal memorabilia.

Luke moves everything to the edges and gives Craig’s bravery pride of place amongst the miscellanea of his everyday life. He looks at Craig for a long time, and the more he stares, the more Luke needs to talk.

“I thought I might have lost you,” he starts in a quiet, serious voice. “I mean, you don’t know what happens to someone, do you? You might have moved away or got sick or, well, you know, something horrible might have happened on the job or anything.”

“I’m still the same.” But even as he says it Luke knows it’s wrong. “Actually, you know what, I’m not. I’m completely different. I’m – well, I came out and I’ve accepted myself and I’m really happy about things. I mean, things now, not the things I did.” He reaches out to the photo and gently strokes Craig’s chin. “I was awful to you. I know that now. I still wonder what you think of me. You must hate me.”

That Craig hates him makes the whole exercise quite pointless. “Sorry”, he says to the photo and to Craig, where ever he might be. “It’s just that I still think about you and I still really care for you. I hope we might..” but Luke changes his mind. “I hope you’re really happy and that your job’s good and that you’re, you know…you just deserve to be happy. What you did for that little kid was fantastic. You should be proud. I’m proud too, but I’m not surprised. I always knew you were a great cop.”

He hasn’t got anything else to say. This bothers him because for years he thought if he saw Craig again, it would take him a lifetime to tell him everything Luke wanted him to know.

“Not now,” Luke says. “Maybe later,” and he closes the door behind him. 

2.

Craig didn’t realise that so many people read the papers. He’s been called by aunties, people who were at Hendon with him, former colleagues, neighbours, cousins and even the man who works in the organic produce store he goes to sometimes.

“You’ve become quite the celebrity,” the Chief Inspector says sarcastically. He and Craig have never got on.

Craig sighs. It’s nice to be noticed, but one thought nags him. Did Luke see it? Did he read it and find himself impressed? Did it make him want to call me?

He’s always in Craig’s thoughts in one way or another. Craig can’t fathom why these days. He thinks sometimes it’s just a habit, and that eventually he’ll meet someone who’ll send the memory of Luke Ashton into the vapour of the past for all time.

Occasionally he thinks that the reason he still thinks about Luke is because he really was the one. But that can’t be right. If he was the one he’d be with him now. When you meet the one you – well, they’re the one and they stay with you.

This thought has a pleasant adjunct, which involves Luke actually being the one sometime in the future. It’s not impossible.

The article mentioned the station where Craig worked. Maybe, if Luke saw it, he might try and contact him. Craig lived in a state of quiet anticipation for a few days, but nothing happened.

He has no picture of Luke. There’s one the system though, on the Met’s intranet at work, but the entry hasn’t been updated since 2003 when Luke transferred from Sun Hill. Sometimes Craig will log in and go check that the picture’s still there.

He wonders if Luke’s changed or if he remembers him. What would he be like? Older? Smarter? Or is he still thinking he’s straight?

“It’s academic,” he tells himself in the shower. “It doesn’t matter.” Saying this made it sound like he believes it and this belief acts as a balm until the acute sadness of the memory wanes once more.

Craig knots a heavy thick towel around his hips and makes his way to the bedroom. “Go away Luke,” he says to the air. “Leave me alone.”

It all sounds good but he doesn’t mean it. He has to get to work and he can’t be plagued by miserable thoughts of a love lost. Nor can he be distracted by the private indulgence of remembering Luke and hoping that they might meet again. He has to get to the station in thirty minutes and once he’s in his office there's too much work to be done.

Craig is determined. Later, maybe, he half thinks as he dresses. Maybe later.

3.

The Media Co-ordinator who looks after the district in which Craig works is a well-meaning but frightfully disorganised woman. She has two small children, a hectic full-time job and a husband who designs refrigeration engines. These aspects of her life seem to have melded and given her an distorted view of her daily tasks: she approaches everything as a major stressful hurdle on which the safety of the world depends. Consequently she manages to supervise the overall completion of difficult onerous tasks but has problems with the details.

Craig bumps into her in the corridor exactly seven weeks after his picture appeared in the paper.

“Oh, Constable Gilmore,” she says excitedly. “Did you get my fax?”

Craig glowers. “Inspector,” he snarls. Her disorganisation grates him. Just seeing her makes him feel as if he has iron filings scattered all over his skin.

“I mean Inspector, of course, of course,” she says, hardly hearing. “Great letters, weren’t they?”

“What?” He doesn’t even try to be polite.

It transpires that several people wrote to the paper in the days following the article. “I was certain I faxed them to you,” she says, although she knows and Craig knows she did no such thing.

Disorganised bint, he mutters to himself as she rushes off (ten minutes late) for a meeting with the DCI. 

The letters make no difference to Craig but that afternoon she gets one of the assistants to send him photocopies anyway.

Craig’s busy. He doesn’t read them that day, is rostered off for the next three days and forgets about them until he’s clearing his desk almost two weeks later.

He’s not really concentrating on the letters themselves but rather where he will file them until he reads the last one:

I just wanted to say how proud I was when I read your article yesterday about the police officers whose quick thinking helped keep a little girl safe. The actions of Inspector Gilmore are an example to all police officers in London.

And it was signed Luke Ashton.

A warm smile, the kind that only happens in response to unexpected delightful news, fills Craig’s face. Hello, Luke!

He reaches out and touches the letters of Luke’s name. The short note makes Craig feel instantly positive and he wants to respond to Luke straight away, to be with him and talk with him immediately. Luke’s proximately is so authentic it brings Craig tangible physical responses – the smile, damp palms, a galloping pulse and the mouth clogging shyness. He opens his mouth to say something to Luke but can’t. Nothing’s adequate.

Still, what a nice letter. That means something, for him to write that. 

“You’re a good lad,” Craig whispers clumsily as he sinks beneath the weight of a thousand maybes.

4.

Where would I start?

This question has plagued Luke and Craig for years. If we were to meet up, where would I start?

Luke thinks he should start by throwing his arms around Craig and begging for forgiveness, understanding a second chance, not necessarily in that order.

Craig doesn’t know what he thinks.

By the time Craig has seen the letter Luke has crawled through a tunnel of anticipation, desperation and embarrassment, only to come out the other end and find himself in exactly the same place.

Craig doesn’t know how he feels.

Luke thinks he’ll join the priesthood, apply for Canadian citizenship, go back to Medecins sans Frontiers, bleach his hair, take out a personal ad, ring some bloke he met at a party about eight months ago or apply for a transfer to Belfast.

Craig doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Their experiences have only one similarity and that’s the wish that the other would get in touch.

This silent unknown agreement endures for two months. Neither does anything to enact it.

Until, one morning, Luke snaps. What the hell am I doing? This is no dress rehearsal. I know where he works. All I have to do is go there and say hello. The worst thing that can happen is that he’ll kill me, which he’d never do because it’s against the law.

As Luke ponders his plan during the day, he realises there are in fact far worse things than mere death that Craig may be able to inflict. These prospects almost deter him from making the trip until he decides that nothing would be worse than wondering like this for the rest of his life.

So he takes the train.

And then a bus.

He buys some mints from the newsagents near the bus stop.

He walks to the station where Craig works.

He stands across the road from the car park.

He then realises that he has no idea what kind of car Craig drives, if he still drives, if he’s working today, if he’s already left and, most importantly, what he’ll do if he actually sees Craig.

“Too late to worry about those things now,” he whispers to himself as he leans heavily against the wall and stares at the rows of cars across the road. “Maybe he’ll show up anyway.”

5.

It’s been a hard day and Craig is cranky. He has to wait for a shower and almost storms off home in uniform but can’t bear the thought of driving home sticky and hot.

The water pressure at his nick is unreliable. He’s yet to have had a comfortable shower there and today is no exception. One minute it’s scalding, the next minute he shudders with goose flesh at the icy blast.

His towel is slightly damp and his clothes aren’t comfortable on his inadequately dried skin.

Just before he leaves he’s approached by two constables and a sergeant. They seem to be having an argument over procedure regarding a Spanish national who is in custody – all have vastly different versions of events and all of them are incorrect in their assumptions as to the best way to proceed. Craig wants to bang their heads together and storm off.

Instead he listens carefully and takes twenty minutes to sort out what is, in fact, a remarkably straightforward matter.

All three, who will finish their shift in an hour, offer to buy him a drink.

“I’ve made arrangements tonight, but thank you just the same.”

There are no arrangements. He walks out in the heat, face down, irritable.

He can’t remember what made him look up, but to this day he believes he could feel someone watching him.

Luke remembers seeing the tall man walking from the door, instantly recognising the comfortable, masculine gait. Oh! It’s him! Luke smiled inside but his face was grave when Craig felt eyes on him from somewhere and looked across the road.

For several seconds they simply stared. Then Craig turned his body around to face Luke and nodded very slightly. Luke immediately nodded back and made his way down that final path.

The traffic was heavy and for some minutes they saw each other disappear behind cars, only to appear again for a second or two, staring, faces blank as paper, waiting.

And then the traffic stopped for a couple of seconds. Luke didn’t hesitate.

The faced each other squarely. Luke smells of mint, Craig smells of some fresh musky cologne.

“I saw you in the paper,” Luke says. Of all the stupid things to start with, he curses privately.

“Yeah, I saw your letter,” Craig answers. Oh, that’s great, that is, real smooth.

Their next dialogue came too quickly. They interrupted each other, stumbled awkward and embarrassed through important things for there was so much to say, too much for the footpath in the late afternoon heat by the roar of the traffic.

Craig squints up the road, unconsciously resting a soft hand on Luke’s upper arm. “It’s noisy here, will you come and get a drink a with me?”

Luke smiled at the archaic phrasing, then at Craig’s eyes. “Sure,” and he touches Craig’s shoulder briefly, quite consciously as they turn away from maybe and later and walk purposely towards definitely and now.


End file.
